Superhero Minis

While fantasy options abound and science fiction models are widely available, miniatures dedicated to superheroic settings tend to be much more scarce – especially if you’re looking for something that’s outside the realm of official characters from the big two comic companies.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time looking around at options for miniatures for my Mighty Protectors campaign and wanted to set up a page to share my findings and to maintain as a resource for others looking for super heroes and villains. The primary focus will be on minis at the 28mm to 32mm scale common to tabletop role-playing games where 1 inch on the table usually represents 5 feet in the real world. (A larger discussion of mini scales is outside the scope of this discussion, but suffice it to say that among the variety of companies offering minis at around this size, the actual scaling is kind of a mess, sometimes even when comparing different minis in the same product line from the same manufacturer! A good overview of miniature scale can be found here.)

Borrowing from other genres

The great thing about comic book settings is that they can include just about anything! Even in a typical modern superhero universe there’s usually room for fantasy creatures and spell-casters, cowboys, aliens, robots, and soldiers. While this page will focus mostly on the capes-and-spandex crowd, it would be a mistake to ignore the massive variety of other options that would easily feel at home in most supers campaigns.

There are plenty of monstrous creatures to choose from as well, who could be attacking the heroes’ city or lurking in its sewer system. Especially when 3d printed models are taken into consideration (more on that below), there are even a plethora of distinctive monsters that aren’t well-known from a certain ubiquitous fantasy universe. No more yawned, “Oh, look, a Neo-Otyguh” from your more experienced players when their foe is revealed.

In my own campaign I’m using Warhammer-style (3d prints in this case) space marines as troops from a criminal organization that has stolen powered armor tech from a government weapons program. Some insect-like creatures previously encountered in the form of pictures printed on little paper tokens will eventually return in full 3d glory.

3d Printed Minis

As of this writing the availability of capes-and-tights supers offerings for 3d print is… a mixed bag. But given the flexibility of the genre, there are still a wide variety of possibilities.

This subject is broad enough to warrant a separate page of its own.

Manufactured Minis

This section will document the availability of minis that can be purchased commercially in a traditional cast or printed form, as distinguished from the 3d printable varieties mentioned above.

Wizkids’ Heroclix

Heroclix figures are more or less the mother-lode of cheap and widely available minis suitable for supers games. Used ones are easy to find – the three game stores within 30 minutes of my house all have bins of them for 50 cents each! They’re appropriately sized and cover a large number of Marvel and DC heroes along with a number of non-comic licenses across multiple genres.

If your characters are from those universes or you don’t mind using ones from those universes that are close enough, there are a lot to choose from. Even if you’re not in the market for big-2-alike minis, there are plenty of the generic minion-y sorts like thugs, police, and paramilitary characters in different poses. They come pre-painted, which is another bonus if you’re not inclined to take that step yourself; if you are, they can be stripped, primed, and repainted to look however you want them to look.

Heroclix aren’t perfect, though. The down sides – admittedly minor – include:

• They’re not really highly detailed, and the paint jobs are fairly basic. Not that they’re particularly ugly, or that I have any objection to using them on my table… but if you want that super-detailed Big Bad, shaded and weathered, to really astound your players when you place it on the table for the first time, you’ll likely have to look elsewhere.
• The stat-counter bases are a little big for playing on a 1″ grid. This is probably easy enough to ignore, but for most of the figures I’ve found it’s not hard to pop those bases off so the minis can be glued onto a more appropriate base.
• Without major modification, they’re pretty much easily identifiable as the character they were based on, even after re-painting. This can be good, bad, or indifferent, depending on your needs or preferences.

All things considered, Heroclix are probably the best bang-for-the-buck method of getting characters on your table short of using paper tokens (which is also a perfectly valid solution I’ve used and continue to use sometimes).

DC Universe and Marvel Crisis Protocol

There are a wide variety of official licensed minis available for these games, but the scales are a little large for typical tabletop RPG use. At 35mm the DC ones will be a bit on the large side… but the Marvel game uses a 40mm scale, which might look ridiculous against other figures and terrain at a more traditional size. These could still be an option if a) you don’t really care, or b) your campaign contains one or more large characters, especially if those characters bear a resemblance to specific Marvel or DC denizens.

Marvel Superheroes

A number of metal figurines were produced for this game from TSR from the mid 80s. They’re no longer in production, and have become somewhat collectible and expensive. They can still often be found for sale on eBay, though.

Crossover Minis Heroes and Villains

The results of several successful Kickstarter campaigns, most of these minis come with multiple heads for customization.

O2Media Watchguard

O2Media sells figures for the DC Universe game, but also has a small line of their own “Watchguard” in the 35mm size used in their “Super Mission Force” skirmish game.

Old Glory Miniatures Superfigs

A collection of Supers-themed minis apparently designed for use in a game called “SuperSystem” which may also be produced by them. Many of their minis can be purchased pre-painted.

At 33mm their scale is a bit unusual and might look slightly outsized on a table full of traditional 28mm.

Reaper Minis Superheroes

Reaper, a big player in fantasy mini circles, also has a small line of supers-themed figures.

Team Frog superheroic 28mm minis

Formerly the “Living Legends” line of Villains & Vigilantes characters from a company called Lance and Laser, now available from Team Frog Studios (though seemingly renamed through the whole range – presumably they acquired the minis but couldn’t or didn’t license the names).

Crooked Dice Game Design Studios

Crooked Dice has number of collections with pulp, science fiction, post-apocalyptic, etc. themes. They seem like a great source of minion-y types in particular.

Black Site Studios

Black Site sells lines of modern, SF, cyberpunk, and horror minis that could fit into a supers campaign. They also have some terrain and 3d printable minis & objects.

Desert Games and Minis

Offering a small selection of Supers-themed miniatures.

My hope is to keep this page updated with information on any new products or items I’ve missed. If you’re aware of supers-specific miniatures not listed here or are involved with a Kickstarter or other project that will be producing such minis, feel free to leave a comment below so I can take a look and update the page with the details.